By Joel Thurtell
Want a great day trip?
If you live in the Detroit area, a wonderful — and free — outing is waiting for you at the Leslie Science and Nature Center on the north side of Ann Arbor at 1831 Traver Rd.
Great Horned Owl photo by Joel Thurtell.Want a great day trip?If you live in the Detroit area, a wonderful -- and free -- outing is waiting for you at the Leslie Science and Nature Center on the north side of Ann Arbor at 1831 Traver Rd.
The center has large outdoor cages that house raptors that have been injured and brought back to health with some disability that makes them unable to fend for themselves in the wild.
If you’re intrigued by hawks and owls, eagles and vultures, this place has them where you can watch them from close range, and for as long as you like.
Admission is free.
Bald eagle Photo by Joel Thurtell
Really, you’re not admitted at all. You just park in the center’s lot and hoof it up a hill to the four buildings with the cages.
The place is open from dawn to dusk.
The first day we visited, there were two Great Horned Owls, two red-tailed hawks, a peregrine falcon, a bald eagle, a saw whet owl, a screech owl, a barn owl, an American kestrel, two barred owls and a vulture. Actually, there was another small hawk without an identification plaque.
In some cases, a bird was pushed out of its nest by an aggressive sibling, discovered still alive by a human and nursed back to health to live at the Leslie center.
Here is a gallery of photos I took over several visits to Leslie Nature Center in 2001.
Redtail hawk. Photo by Joel Thurtell.
Great horned owl. Photo by Joel Thurtell.
Peregrine falcon. Photo by Joel Thurtell.
